PRIORI INCANTATEM

2. Minister's Rants

Immediately, with a flick of wand, James vanished. In his place stood a beautiful stag with peculiar markings around its eyes.

Sirius seemed satisfied. With a gleeful scream, he plunged himself on top of James who had now turned back to his usual self.

"James! Ho — Wh ­— Never mind! I never thought I'd live to see you again!"

"Lily-flower!" he went and hugged Lily. James joined the group hug. Dumbledore nudged Harry to go to his parents.

Lily hugged Harry as if there would never be a next time. "Oh! My baby has grown up so much! He looks so much like you James."

"But he has your eyes!" James whispered, hugging his son as well.

"So I've been told before," Harry grinned.

"What am I? Chopped liver?" Sirius whined. Harry went over and hugged him as well.

"Where's Moony?" James asked.

"Must be somewhere," Sirius replied, grinning. He looked as if he had become twenty years younger in presence of James and Lily.

"Ah, sorry to interrupt your family moment," Dumbledore spoke, chuckling, "Harry here has some explanation to do."

"The Wizard of Oz . . . always spoils the moment," Sirius said, whining.

"If I'm right Sirius, which I firmly believe I am, it was you who was eager to listen to Harry's experience," Dumbledore chuckled.

"Okay, what happened?" Sirius asked seriously. (A/N: No pun intended)

Dumbledore began to tell them everything Barty Crouch had said. Harry was only half listening. He was so tired every bone in his body was aching.

There was a soft rush of wings. Fawkes the phoenix had left his perch, flown across the offices, and landed on Harry's knee.

" 'Lo, Fawkes," said Harry quietly. He stroked the phoenix's beautiful scarlet-and-gold plumage.

"I need to know what happened after you touched the Portkey in the maze, Harry," said Dumbledore. He asked Sirius to change back to his animagus form and called Cedric, Bertha and the old muggle in his office.

Reluctantly, Harry raised his head, took a deep breath and began to tell them. As he spoke, visions of everything that had passed that night seemed to rise above his eyes; he saw the sparkling surface of the potion that had revived Voldemort; he saw the Death Eaters Apparating between the graves around them; he saw Cedric's body, lying on the ground beside the cup.

When Harry told of Wormtail piercing his arm with dagger, James let out a vehement exclamation, Sirius growled barring his teeth and Dumbledore stood up so quickly that Harry started. He told Harry to stretch out his arm. Harry showed them both the place where his robes were torn and the cut beneath them.

"He said my blood would make his stronger than if he'd used someone else's," Harry told Dumbledore. "He said the protection my —" he looked up to Lily, "­— my mother — left in me — he'd have it too. And he was right — he could touch me without hurting himself, he touched my face."

"Ah, that doesn't matter now does it?" Dumbledore smiled. For a fleeting second, apart from happiness, he saw a gleam of something like triumph in Dumbledore's eyes. "Your mother — Lily — is now back, so the protection won't work. Harry, continue, please."

Harry went on; he explained how Voldemort had emerged from the cauldron, and told them all he could remember of Voldemort's speech to the Death Eaters. Then he told how Voldemort had untied him, returned his wand, and prepared to duel.